The Volunteer

“AT dawn,” he said, “I bid them all farewell,
To go where bugles call and rifles gleam.”
And with the restless thought asleep he fell,
And glides ino dream.

A great hot plain from sea to mountain spread –
Through it a level river slowly drawn.
He moved with a vast crowd and at its head
Streamed banners like the dawn.

There came a blinding flash, a deafening roar,
And dissonant cries of triumph and dismay;
Blood trickled down the river’s reedy shore,
And with the dead he lay.

The morn broke in upon his solemn dream;
And still, with steady pulse and deepening eye
“Where bugles call,” he said, “and rifles gleam,
I follow, though I die!”

Wise youth! By few is glory’s wreath attained,
But death or late or soon awaiteth all.
To fight in Freedom’s cause is something gained
And nothing lost, to fall.

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, May 3, 1862, p. 1